With limited attention spans, passive jobseekers can be a challenge to recruit. Here are a few tips on how to make your job posting stand out.

Passive, high caliber talent have the attention span of a gnat. Such peak performers are interested in career advancement opportunities, but they’re totally uninterested in reading about them. How can you hang onto them long enough to pique their curiosity about your opening? Take your best shot at the very beginning of your job posting.

Most job postings today start with what the employer wants a new hire to do for it. They’re gussied up position descriptions similar to the following:

Currently we are seeking a professional and dedicated Sales Representative with a background in respiratory services, durable medical equipment sales or home medical equipment sales to help us grow our business.

Such ad content may appeal to active job seekers, but it leaves passive prospects cold. People who already have a job—and that’s largely the case with passive, high caliber talent—don’t want to know what an opening can do for the employer; they want to know what it can do for them.

Equally as important, they don’t have a lot of patience with your making them read six or eight paragraphs before you provide that information. They want it fast and right at the start. So, take your best shot first and make it matter to them.

Front Load Your Posting With JECC

Research indicates that only a small set of triggers has the power to motivate a passive prospect into action. These triggers are not the “requirements and responsibilities” of a job—what an employer wants a job seeker to be able to do—but rather what it is about the position that could be advantageous to them.

In addition, given their short attention span, that information has to be delivered in the first five lines of a job posting and with language that will catch their attention or pique their curiosity or—best of all—do both. It has to be up front, hard hitting and on target.

The formula for such an introductory paragraph is JECC, where:

J describes why the opening is a dream job for top talent. Why is it an extraordinary career advancement opportunity for them?

E describes why the organization with the opening is a dream employer for top talent. What makes it an extraordinary place to work and advance their career?

C indicates the range of compensation the opening provides. Top performers don’t work for money, but do use their paycheck to gauge their career advancement. They won’t even consider a job where there isn’t a financial advantage for them.

C indicates the organization’s commitment to candidate confidentiality. Passive, high caliber talent have something to lose by considering another position—their current job—so they need to be explicitly reassured that their privacy will be protected.

Admittedly, it’s not easy to write such a paragraph, but its potential impact is worth the effort. It embodies the golden rule of recruiting: What you do to recruit the best talent will also recruit mediocre talent, but the converse is not true. If you want your job posting to engage passive, high caliber prospects, you have to deliver your content the way they want it. You have to take your best shot first.

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, The Career Fitness Workbook: How to Find, Win & Hang Onto the Job of Your Dreams, The Career Activist Republic, The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired & Not Be Fired, and WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. Get them at Amazon.com and Weddles.com today.